
Class'ES^57£ 

COPmiGHT DEPOSIT. 



CURTAINS 



CURTAINS 

By HAZEL HALL 



/ have curtained my ivindow with fdmy seeming. 
Overhanging it with, chintz of dreaming. 
That I may watch through sun and rain 
Beside the windowpane. 

Faintly my curtains stir and flutter 
Before the words that loud rains utter. 
And through their fabric, cool and still. 
The sun falls on the sill. 



NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
MCMXXI 



V"=>'^'^ta 



^"^to 



V 



Copyright, 1921, 
By JOHN LANE COMPANY 



SEP -3 iii^ 



Press of 

J. J. Little & Ives Company 

New York, U. S. A. 



g)CLA622664 



^- 



Note. In certain of these poems I 
have blended metrical and irregular 
rhythms in an attempt to contrast mono- 
tonous motion, presented in even meas- 
ures, with interruption which is expressed 

in freer forms. 

The Author. 



For the privilege of reprinting many of 
the following poems the author wishes to 
thank the editors of Poetry, Poet Lore, 
Contemporary Verse, The New Republic, 
Harper s Magazine, The Nation, The Lib- 
erator, The Dial, Smart Set, Sunset, Touch- 
stone, The Boston Transcript and other 
publications. 



CONTENTS 

PART ONE: CURTAINS page 

Frames 13 

June Night 1^ 

Sun Glamour 1^ 

The World's Voice 16 

Seasons 1^ 

Footsteps . T-^ 

To A Door 20 

Floor of a Room ........ 21 

The Hand-Glass 22 

Silence 23 

Things That Grow 24 

Stairways 25 

Night Silence 27 

Counterpanes 28 

Passers-by 29 

Late Winter 30 

Because of Jonquils 31 

Unseen 32 

Company 33 

A Child Dancing 34 

Roads 35 

The Room Upstairs 36 

The Proud Steed 38 

7 



CONTENTS 

PART ONE: CURTAINS (Continued) 

Songs for Dreams 39 

Nobody Passes 40 

Shadows 41 

Twilight 42 

Ecstasy 43 

Captive 44 

Cowardice 45 

Before Thought 46 

Shadow-Bound 47 

A Falling Star 48 

Feet 49 

Flash 50 

Echoes 51 

Loneliness 52 

Sunlight Through a Window 53 

Record 54 

My Song 55 

The Grey Veil 56 

The Answer 57 

Hours 58 

The Circle 59 

Defeat 60 

The Impartial Giver 61 

Sands 62 



PART TWO: NEEDLEWORK 

Knitting Needles 67 

Stitches 71 

Monograms 73 

8 



CONTENTS 

PART TWO: NEEDLEWORK (Continued) ^^^^ 

Late Hours 75 

Mending 76 

Bead Work 77 

Seams 79 

Finished To-Night 80 

A Baby's Dress 81 

Cross-Stitch 83 

Plain Sewing 84 

Sewing Hands 85 

Lingerie 86 

Filet Crochet 87 

Heavy Threads 89 

Buttonholes 90 

Puzzled Stitches 91 

Summer Sewing 92 

Habit 94 

Paths 95 

Ripping 96 

Made of Crepe de Chine 98 

Measurements 99 

Instruction 100 

Then the Wind Blew 101 

My Needle's Thread 102 

Two Sewing 103 

The Listening Macaws 105 

The Long Day 106 

Inanimate 107 

After Embroidering 108 

Three Songs for Sewing 109 

Late Sewing 112 

9 



COJMTENTS 

PART THREE: SPRING FROM A WINDOW 



PAGE 



Blossom-Time 115 

In April 116 

When There is April 117 

Foreboding 118 



10 



PART ONE 
CURTAINS 



FRAMES 

Brown window-sill, you hold my all of skies, 
And all I know of springing year and fall, 
And everything of earth that greets my eyes — 
Brown window-sill, how can you hold it all? 

Grey walls, my days are bound within your hold. 
Cast there and lost like pebbles in a sea; 
And all my thought is squared to fit your mould — 
Grey wall, how mighty is your masonry! 



13 



JUNE NIGHT 



Into my room to-night came June, 
A band of stars caught up her hair, 
And woven of the mist of moon, 
And patterned from the leaf -laced air, 
Her garments spread a soft perfume 
Over the shadows of my room. 

But hardly had her coming stirred 
My darkness with a hope like dawn. 
Or had my anxious silence heard 
Her faint footfall, than she was gone. 
She went as though with a quick fear 
Of the eternal winter here. 



14 



SUN GLAMOUR 

The day has brought me sun-loaned cheer, 
And to unchangeable ways, change . . . 
But dusk is here to make them strange, 
Making them clear. 



15 



THE WORLD'S VOICE 

If I listen shall I hear 

Sounds that seem to hover near? 

Speech of ship calling to ship 

Through dark tides that twist and grip, 

Dash of spray on a splintered coast, 

The whisper-flutter of a host 

Of sun-coloured butterflies 

Wheeling under marbled skies; 

The jabber of a little wind 

Where the meadows' grass is thinned — 

Or where trees forget their prides 

To sway in unison like tides; 

All the city's formal din; 

All the hush where big streets thin 

To little crooked lanes and lose 

Themselves as the green distance blues 

Into space Oh, everything 

That can either sound or sing! 

To-day my four grey walls are strung 
So thin, each echo has a tongue; 
The world has raised its voice to-day 
That I may hear what it has to say. 



16 



I listen . . . 

What I hear 
Is only the longing of an ear 
Too much concerned with the cry of space, 
And with listening in a quiet place. 



17 



SEASONS 



Winter, spring, summer and fall — 
Shadow-lights upon a wall: 

Gleams of grey fleeing the path 

Where the wind walks cold with wrath; 

Yellow-fluttered petalled things 
Like flower ghosts of other springs; 

Curtains of dull, sticky gold, 
•Smothering hours in their fold; 

Smoky rays that stir and creep 
Aimlessly, like tired sheep. 

Winter, spring, summer and fall — 
Shadows fading on a wall. 



18 



FOOTSTEPS 

They pass so close, the people on the street; 

Footfall, footfall; 

I know them from their footsteps' pulsing beat 

Footfall, footfall; 

The tripping, lingering and the heavy feet; 

I hear them call: 

/ am the dance of youth, and life is fair! 

Footfall, footfall; 

/ am a dream, divinely unaware! 

Footfall, footfall; 

/ am the burden of an old despair! 

Footfall . . . 



19 



TO A DOOR 

Door, you stand in your darkened frame 
Mindful of your wooden might, 
Flaunting relentlessly your claim 
As guardian of sound and light. 

Yet for all your vigil. Door, 
Shadows that slip on panting feet 
Over your threshold tinge the floor 
With what was sunlight on the street. 

And sounds fluttering in to die 
(Door, you thought I should not know!) 
Were started by an echo's cry 
That was a voice not long ago. 



20 



FLOOR OF A ROOM 

The walls and windows of my room, 

With stolid constancy 

Spreading checkered light or gloom, 

Belong to me. 

Of all my room the floor alone 

Is not my own. 

Days, like armfuls of fresh flowers 

Slowly ... I scatter there; 

Yet for my off^ering of hours 

I may share 

Only the cold, disquiet rest 

Of a passing guest. 

Always I must waive my rights 
To feet, who, strange and still. 
Press their claims on windy nights; 
And not until 

I come again, another ghost. 
Shall I be host. 



21 



THE HAND-GLASS 



I am holding up a mirror 

To look at life; in my hand-glass 

I see a strange, hushed street below me 

Where people pass. 

The street is coloured like a picture. 

And people passing there 

Move with the majesty of story, 

And are less real and wise than fair. 

Looking at life in a mirror 

Is distortion. I must see 

Through the paint the flimsy canvas, 

I must be 

Cynical, and judge no passer 

By the colour of a dress — 

eyes that must learn from a mirror, 

Search for dust and bitterness! 



22 



SILENCE 



Silence is the sound of footsteps 

Hushed upon a stair, 

The fluttering of ruffled garments, 

A song's forgotten air — 

All the old, forbidden echoes 

That quenched their fevers there. 



23 



THINGS THAT GROW 

I like things with roots that know the earth, 
Trees whose feet, nimble and brown, 
Wander around in the house of their birth 
Until they learn, by growing down. 
To build with branches in the air; 
Ivy-vines that have known the loam 
And over trellis and rustic stair. 
Or old grey houses, love to roam ; 
And flowers pushing vehement heads. 
Like flames from a fire's hidden glow, 
Through the seething soil in garden-beds. 
Yet I, who am forbidden to know 
The feel of earth, once thought to make 
Singing out of a heart's old cry! 
Untaught by earth how could I wake 
The shining interest of the sky? 



24 



STAIRWAYS 

Why do I think of stairways 
With a rush of hurt surprise? 
Wistful as forgotten love 
In remembered eyes; 
And fitful as the flutter 
Of little draughts of air 
That linger on a stairway 
As though they loved it there. 

New and shining stairways, 
Stairways worn and old, 
Where rooms are prison places 
And corridors are cold. 
You intrigue with fancy. 
You challenge with a lore 
Elusive as a moon's light 
Shadowing a floor. 



25 



You speak to me not only 

With the lure of storied art — 

For wonder of old footsteps 

Lies lightly on my heart; 

And more than the reminiscence 

Of yesterday's renown — 

Laughter that might have floated up, 

Echoes that should drift down. 



26 



NIGHT SILENCE 



A great mouth, lean and grey. 
Munching the sounds of day: 
Last voices and the beat 
Of weather and late feet. 

Gently parted lips 
Telling of high white ships 
That sail the imaged seas 
Of borrowed memories. 

Inexorable lips shut tight 
Over the tongue of the night , 

Suddenly the sick sound 
Of crickets on the ground, 
Or the long shuddering bark 
Of a dog into the dark . . , 

Insinuations of vain 
Forgetfulness of pain. 
Taunts of old moonlights 
And other sound-stung nights. 



27 



COUNTERPANES 

I will make myself new thought; 
My own is worn and old. 
And old counterpanes will not 
Keep out the wind and cold. 

From borrowed thought I will choose 
Pieces, and, row on row, 
Patch a quilt of many hues 
Like the quilts of long ago. 

It cannot be so fine 
As what the years have thinned. 
But I dread the smothered whine 
Of four grey walls' grey wind. 

I will patch me a counterpane. 
For mine is worn to scars. 
And I fear the iron rain 
Of a ceiling's splashing stars. 



28 



PASSERS-BY 

You — and you. Passer-by — and you; 
You, languid feet, and you, wild to climb, 
Seeking your respite or star-rimmed view. 
Where do you go down the streets of Time? 

Never the same, yet ever the same — 
You and you, hurrying, slow. 
Crowding the way with your motley claim 
Of life, always you come and go. 

You, stung with purpose. You, driven by 
Blindly before Creation's sweep. 
Are there ways for the searchers of stars on high? 
And other ways for the seekers of sleep? 

Or only one way for all to run? ... 
Only one sound drifts up to me, 
The blend of every tread in one. 
Impersonal as the beat of the sea. 



29 



LATE WINTER 



I am content with latticed sights: 
A lean grey bough, a frill 
Of filmy cloud, the shadow-lights 
Upon a window-sill. 

I am content in wintered days 

With all my eyes may meet. 

April, when you dance down these ways 

Hush your awakening feet. 



30 



BECAUSE OF JONQUILS 

A ray of jonquils thrills the grey 

And frowning winter of a room . . . 

Out from the depths of an old day 

A burst of spring-light cuts its way, 

Lifting the vague perfume 

Of walled-in gardens long, long dumb, 

Of blooms that never bloomed at all . . . 

Then quickly, as autumn's keen winds come. 

Shadows, like dead leaves, fall. 



31 



UNSEEN 



Often I am awaked from sleep to see — 
Framed like a picture by the dark of night — 
The sweep of space above a frozen height, 
Or, lifting from a skyline, one dead tree. 
Again it is the full tide leaping free 
Over black rocks, or breaking blue and white. 
Again, a rill that in leaf-filtered light, 
With words of rustling water, calls to me. 

These are not dreams of beauty I have known, 
Nor mine the interest remembrance brings ; 
Only my fancy knows the tides' deep tone. 
Only my longing seeks the tangled springs . . 
And yet they make a clearer, wilder call 
Than if a fond remembering were all. 



32 



COMPANY 



A footstep sounded from the street . 
Listening, I knew of you! 
With the good singing of your feet 
You came in, too. 

Companioned by the sun and rain. 
Mingling with the winds at will. 
You passed, but in your step's refrain 
I have you still. 



33 



A CHILD DANCING 



A child with unmanageable feet 

Skips on the street below; 

The wind has invited her to race, 

The sun is a kiss upon her face 

And the world a great applauding place. 

I know . . . 

She dances now with timid step, 
Light as new leaves blow. 
Her skirts are wings of butterflies, 
And with every feathery grace she tries 
Her feet cry out life's glad surprise . 
I know . . . 



34 



ROADS 

One road leads out to the country-side; 
One road goes by on its way to town; 
And always, as long as the sun is guide, 
The feet that love them go up and down. 

After the evening star's white light 
Has lured from the hills or the lighted town. 
There are other feet all through the night. 
Following dreams up and down. 



35 



THE ROOM UPSTAIRS 



Room just above me 

Over my own, 

I have not seen you, 

I have not known 

Where your big bed stands, 

Where is your chair, 

Whether your windows 

Look here or look there. 



Room just above me. 

Long have I kept 

Vigil below you 

While others slept, 

Thinking of footsteps 

Known to your floor. 

Which passed from your threshold 

To come there no more. 



Room just above me, 
To-night it seems 
There is new creaking 
Over your beams; 



36 



It might be the night-wind, 
It might be the tread 
Of one who is lonely, 
Or bored, being dead. 



37 



THE PROUD STEED 



I plunge at the rearing hours 
Life is a steed of pride, 
Who so high above me towers 
I cannot mount and ride. 



38 



SONGS FOR DREAMS 

Some dreams that I have loved 
And dreamed by night and day, 
Though they are lost to me, 
Are never far away. 

A part of lurking winds, 
Of silence in grey rooms — 
From every echoed sound. 
And out of comer-glooms 

They come as strange as ghosts, 
A little death-sad throng. 
Beseeching me with praying hands 
To give them life in song. 



39 



NOBODY PASSES 



Nobody passes on the street. 

The day is set, like a stage, for feet. 

With a ridge of white clouds painted high 

Across the canvas of the sky; 

With pavement gleaming and too clean ; 

A shimmer of grass that seems too green, 

And houses alert on every side 

Showing a stiff and conscious pride. 

The day is a stage, and life is a play — 

But nobody passes down this way. 



10 



SHADOWS 



One shadow on my wall, an intimate 
Of dusk, comes only when it comes alone. 
It lifts out of new dark and spreads a great 
Wing of quiet where once the sun has shone, 
Cooling the air like rain on stone. 

Such shadow might find entrance to a tomb. 
And be at home in places where the dead 
Are fitful sleepers; moving through the gloom 
It might lay benediction on a head 
That death has left uncomforted. 



41 



TWILIGHT 



Tiptoeing twilight, 
Before you pass, 
Bathe light my spirit 
As dew bathes grass. 

Quiet the longing 
Of my hands that yearn. 
As you fold the flower 
And hush the fern. 

Guard me with shadows 
To fortify 

My failing purpose. 
My tired eye, 

That in your stillness 
I may relight 
My faith's frail candle 
Before the night. 



42 



ECSTASY 



For moments of this life's swift cycle made 
Commemorable with you, Ecstasy, 
Shall we be reconciled in worlds to be. 
Shall we find recompense when death is paid? 
I can imagine in eternal shade 
Solace for tired dreams, and in the sea 
Equivalent for moods of stress or glee; 
In stars an old unrest merged and allayed. 

What element can give us, in your name, 

Redress which is appreciable before 

The concept of the universal mind? 

You, who are multiform, to one a flame. 

Soul-scourging; to another are defined 

In sudden earth-breaths through an opened door. 



43 



CAPTIVE 



My spirit is a captive bird 
That beats against its cage all day, 
Until its winging strength is whirred 
Vainly away. 

My spirit learns its impotence 
Only when night has blurred its bars. 
Wings seem a strange impertinence 
Before the stars. 



44 



COWARDICE 



Discomfort sweeps my quiet as a wind 

Leaps at trees and leaves them cold and thinned. 

Not that I fear again the mastery 

Of winds, for holding my indifference dear 

I do not feel illusions stripped from me. 

And yet this is a fear — 

A fear of old discarded fears, of days 

That cried out at irrevocable ways. 

I cower for my own old cowardice. 

For hours that beat upon the wind's broad breast 

With hands as impotent as leaves are; this 

Robs my new hour of rest. 

I thought my pride had covered long ago 
All the old scars, like broken twigs in snow. 
I thought to luxuriate in rich decay, 
As some far-seeing tree upon a hill; 
But startled into shame for an old day 
I find that I am but a coward still. 



45 



BEFORE THOUGHT 



Dawn paints quaint histories 
In pageant on my wall; 
Imminent destinies 
Concern it not at all. 



46 



SHADOW-BOUND 

You whom the shadows beckoned 
Long and long ago, 
Who taught me the flaming utterance 
Of words, now strange and slow 
On my lips that loved them 
Long — Oh, long ago . . . 

Why have you stirred the silence 
That flowered from my pain? 
Just now your anxious footstep 
Sounded above the rain; 
Just now your eyes, beseeching, 
Shadowed my windowpane. 



47 



A FALLING STAR 



I hope I shall remember, 

The day I come to die, 

The welcome of this morning's dawn. 

This evening's good-night sky. 

I hope I shall remember 

The kindly little star. 

Caught in to-night's mist-matted hair, 

Which greeted me afar. 

And how as I was v/atching, 
Loving its little light. 
Fleet as a dream it dropped and fell 
Into the urn of night. 



48 



FEET 



Feet, I am weary of your beat; 
All day, all year, all life you pass 
Below me on the street, 
Driven upon my hearing as the grass 
Before wild rain and sleet. 

You snatch up in your tidal tone 
The reaching rhythms of my peace 
And substitute your drone. 
Until intimidated dreams release 
The visions they have known. 

Feet, I am weary of your stave — 
The little course your sounds pursue — 
Weary that I must waive 
My reaches in subservience to you, 
Who seek only a grave. 



49 



FLASH 



I am less of myself and more of the sun; 
The beat of life is wearing me 
To an incomplete oblivion, 
Yet not to the certain dignity 
Of death. They cannot even die 
Who have not lived. 

The hungry jaws 
Of space snap at my unlearned eye, 
And time tears in my flesh like claws. 

If I am not life's, if I am not death's. 
Out of chaos I must re-reap 
The burden of untasted breaths. 
Who has not waked may not yet sleep. 



50 



ECHOES 



Day-long I hear life's sounds beat like the sea ; 

Day-long, day-long 

They sweep their deep tide-rhythms over me, 

And as a song 

Reiterated, fall unmeaningly. 

Where once I bent life's echoes to my will, 

Day after day 

Following wings of sound over the sill 

Far, far away. 

Now my sick fancy lies inert and still. 

Silence that slowly wraps me with the ease 

Of dreamed-out sleep. 

Quenches the sound of vague realities 

Whose echoes keep 

Their rhythms like old winds in drying seas. 



51 



LONELINESS 



Sometimes when I am long alone 
I wonder what is loneliness — 
This silence like a deep bell's tone, 
These moments, motionless? 

This hush above the nervous street? 
Removed as is the tree that stands, 
Hill-high, with burrowing root-feet 
And boughs like reaching hands. 

As in my blood I feel life press. 
Like sap into the frailest bough, 
I think if such is loneliness 
Then I am lonely now. 



52 



SUNLIGHT THROUGH A WINDOW 

Beauty streamed into my hand 
In sunlight through a pane .of glass; 
Now at last I understand 
Why suns must pass. 

I have held a shadow, cool 
Reflection of a burning gold, 
And it has been more beautiful 
Than hands should hold. 

To that delicate tracery 

Of light, a force my lips must name 

In whispers of uncertainty, 

Has answered through me in a flame. 

Beauty is a core of fire 
To reaching hands; even its far 
Passing leaves a hurt desire 
Like a scar. 



53 



RECORD 



Dreams are eyes fixed on closed doors 
And on threshold-lights lighting cold floors. 

Dreams are doors swung strangely back 
On the wonder of a ribbony track. 

Dreams are voices, echoed and thinned, 
Calling . . . drowned out in the wind. 

Dreams are feet on the edge of lands 
Feeling the suck of hidden sands. 



54 



MY SONG 



My song that was a sword is still. 
Like a scabbard I have made 
A covering with my will 
To sheathe its blade. 

It had a flashing tongue of steel 
That made old shadows start; 
It would not let the darkness heal 
About my heart. 



55 



THE GREY VEIL 



Life flings weariness over me 
Like a thick grey veil; I see 
Through its mesh where suns are cold, 
Nights are ancient and dawns are old. 

Now at last with glamour gone 
I can see the naked dawn; 
Gauge the hollow depths of noon, 
Coolly question star and moon. 

And where fired sunsets pale 
I, who wear life's grey veil, 
Shall not marvel, shall not care. 
No light of earth's however fair. 
Robbed of the sting of its surprise, 
Can delude my sober eyes. 



56 



THE ANSWER 

I asked the watchful corners of a ceiling, 

And the little darkened cracks the years scrawled 

there, 
Why there are suns, and if there is a purpose 
Behind this mask of life that people wear. 

I asked some gnarled and patient shadows groping 
Like wise hands of old blind men, on my wall ; 
And everything I asked answered my question 
With that one answer which does well for all. 



57 



HOURS 

I have known hours built like cities, 
House on grey house, with streets between 
That lead to straggling roads and trail off, 
Forgotten in a field of green; 

Hours made like mountains lifting 
White crests out of the fog and rain, 
And woven of forbidden music — 
Hours eternal in their pain. 

Life is a tapestry of hours 

Forever mellowing in tone. 

Where all things blend, even the longing 

For hours I have never known. 



58 



THE CIRCLE 



Dreams — and an old, old waking, 
An unspent vision gone; 
Night, clean with silence, breaking 
Into loud dawn. 

A wonder that is blurring 
The new day's strange demands, 
The indomitable stirring 
Of folded hands. 

Then only the hours' pageant 
And the drowsing sound of their creep, 
Bringing at last the vagrant 
Dreams of new sleep. 



59 



DEFEAT 

Is this defeat then, after all — 
This new indifference to the street. 
This unf elt weight of roof and wall — 
Is this defeat? 

I thought to make my spirit wear 
Glittering garments of unrest, 
To keep my keen, knife-edged despair 
Unsheathed and brilliantly unrepressed. 

But days have worn my unrest thin; 
Time's soft fingers gently close 
Over my outstretched hand, and in 
Their certain touch I feel repose. 

This is defeat; I will submit, 
Resigned to the quieting decree 
Of defeat that is indefinite 
As victory. 



60 



THE IMPARTIAL GIVER 

I who have spent my hands in futile weaving, 
And you who flung yours out before the sun, 
For all you held, for all my restless grieving, 
What have you, more than I have, really won? 

My industry has faltered; through your fingers 
Your sunlight sifts like finely running sands; 
And Time shall bring us, when the last star lingers, 
A cross to hold, made of our humbled hands. 



61 



SANDS 



My days are like sands; colourless, 
Each matched to each, unerringly 
They drift. The salt bleach of a sea 
Has washed them clean and lustreless; 
The teeth of rock on ragged strands 
Have ground them to an even grey, 
And one wind blows them a one way. 

But Oh, the slow making of sands. 

All is here; forgotten things 

Mix with the unforgettable. 

Granite blends with tinted shell. 

And nothing so stable that it clings 

To its stability. Had there 

Been more of marble, more of gold. 

The sands would hide in their grim hold 

Nothing more wise, nothing more fair. 

But Oh, the slow making of sands. 



62 



Grain on grain of even grey, 
Slowly they drift in the one way 
Covering the wreck that stands 
Against my beach of life. One mast 
Cuts at the sky, the hull is fast 
In sand — the slow-made sands that pull 
With the wind . . . covering . . 
And leaving every broken thing 
Hushed and coldly beautiful. 



63 



PART TWO 
NEEDLEWORK 



KNITTING NEEDLES 

When my great-grandmother died 

She left a trunkful of remembering things. 

There are carved boxes of sandalwood 

Guarding inconsequential trifles of grave con- 
sequence, 

Like scraps of faded ribbon and broken jewel- 
lery 

And the ash of a pressed rose. 

There are fans of ivory, 

Pieces of fine, worn lace, 

And bundles of yellowed letters. 

But most remembering of all are her knitting 
needles. 

They are made of black bone 

And gleam with sudden creamy light, like 
lacquer. 

When I touch them 

They are cold with the death of many years. 

Then quickly they take on a sensuous warmth, 

And speak under my knitting hands : 



67 



Long ago . . . 

There was a garden steeped in spring, 

And in remembering . . . 

A seat in the shade where flowers were — 

A seat in the shade — and a riotous blur 

Of colour and scent and sun-gold June . . . 

And the warm-armed mists of last night's moon, 

Clouding, shrouding everything 

With new remembering . . . 

And every heedless second stirred 

At a needle's click, and passed unheard. 

Keeping, sweeping Time. 



68 



Long ago . . . 

There was a window whose shining pane, 

Sun-bright or dimmed with rain, 

Framed vistas of an empty day 

And a winding road winding away 

To end like a ravelled thread, 

Winding away to coax a tread. 

Yet only echoes might it bring, 

Echoes, long remembering — 

Echoes, vibrant unsilenced sound 

That caught up the days in its spirals and wound 

The months, the years, around and around. 

And hurled them out of the truth of things 

Into the heaven of rememberings . . . 

What mattered the minutes slipping past 

Under wan hands — unheeded, fast — 

Keeping, leaping Time? 



69 



Long ago . , . 

There were grey depths in a white-walled room 

Of uncomputed gloom. 

There was no sound save a click, click, click. 

As even and true as a good clock's tick; 

And nothing of musical silence was there 

To ease the weight of unwaved air. 

Outside there was no winter nor spring. 

Within there was no remembering — 

There was no need of remembering. 

Except to cast on the stitches right; 

Only the need of a little light 

A little longer — nothing at all 

Save the clicking moments' rise and fall, 

As, proud in their own importance at last, 

They clicked and nicked their way . . . and 

passed . . . 
Into Time. 



70 



STITCHES 



Over and under, 
Under and out. 
Thread that is fibre, 
Thread that is stout. 

I'm not singing; 
I'm sewing. 

Days that are futile, 
Days that are wise. 
Holding the visions 
Of dead men's eyes. 

I tell you I'm not singing; 
If you hear anything 
It's my needle. 

Days that are prophets 
With prophecies 
Blunted and tangled 
As Eternitv's. 



71 



I say if you hear anything — 

Life-threaded hours; 
Purpose that wraps 
Fine stitch on fine stitch — 
Then ravels . . . and snaps. 



72 



MONOGRAMS 



I am monogramming 
Seven dozen napkins, 
With tablecloths to match, 
For a bride. 

Ninety-one times my needle shall trace 
The leaf-like scrolls that interlace 
Each other; up the padded side 
Of the monogram my eye shall guide 
For ninety-one days where the stitches run ; 
And every day one more is done. 

She is tall and fair, 
She will be married 
In June. ... 

The linen is fine as satin is fine; 
Its shining coolness flaunts design 
Of death-white poppies, trailing ferns 
Rioting richly from Grecian urns. 

Ghost-flowers. 
Cold, cold ... 



73 



All these patterned splendours fade 
Before the crest my hands have made; 
In the lifeless flax my stitches cry 
With life my hands may not put by. 

June . . . 

Real flowers. 

Moist and warm to touch, 

Like flesh . . . 

And by and by with all the rest 
Of intimate things in her bridal-chest. 
Gentle muslins and secret lace. 
Something of mine will have a place; 
Caught in these scrolls and filigrees 
There will be that which no eye sees, 
The bulk of a season's smothered wonder. 
My ninety-one days stitched under and under. 

They will be decking an altar 
With white roses, 
And lacing an aisle 
With white ribbon. . . . 



74 



LATE HOURS 



Crowds are passing on the street, 
Tuck on tuck and pleat on pleat 
Of people hurrying along, 
Homeward bound, throng on throng. 
Their work is finished, mine undone; 
Still my stitches run. 

I cannot watch the people go, 

Fold on fold and row on row; 

But I know each pulsing tread 

Is spinning out a life's fine thread; 

I know the stars, like needle-gleams, 

Are pricking through the sky's wide seams ; 

And soon the moon must show its face, 

Like a pearl button stitched in place. 

All the long hours of the day 

Are finished now and folded away; 

Yet the hem is still undone 

Where my stitches run. 



75 



MENDING 



Here are old things: 

Fraying edges, 

Ravelling threads; 

And here are scraps of new goods, 

Needles and thread, 

An expectant thimble, 

A pair of silver-toothed scissors. 

Thimble on a finger. 

New thread through an eye; 

Needle, do not linger. 

Hurry as you ply. 

If you ever would be through 

Hurry, scurry, fly! 

Here are patches. 
Felled edges. 
Darned threads. 
Strengthening old utility. 
Pending the coming of the new. 

Yes, I have been mending . . . 

But also, 

I have been enacting 

A little travesty on life. 



76 



BEAD WORK 

Restless needle, where my beads 
Whip with colour, roll like seeds. 
Dive, and pick up one and one. 
One and one till we are done; 
And fasten each one firm and true 
Where the pattern tells you to — 
One and one, and one and one. 



One and one, and one and one — 

Flying needle, as you run. 

As you pick up the lobes of light 

Mind you guide each sparkle right; 

Mind this tawny brown you choose, 

Shading it with light wood hues, 

When you shape the curving rim 

Of this great basket, on whose brim 

Heap the designated green. 

From new-leaf shades to laurel's sheen. 

Then with dawn-pinks and heavy reds 

Paint the drowsy roses' heads. 

Let dreamy mauves and tones of brass, 

And bits of blue in mosaic mass, 



77 



Speak for the tints of timid bloom 
Which share the shadows' checkered 
gloom . . . 

Sleepy flowers, 

Speeding hours, 

Hours, flowers, hours . . . 



78 



SEAMS 



I was sewing a seam one day — 

Just this way — 

Flashing four silver stitches there 

With thread, like this, fine as a hair. 

And then four here, and there again, 

When 

The seam I sewed dropped out of sight 

I saw the sea come rustling in, 

Big and grey, windy and bright . . . 

Then my thread that was as thin 

As hair, tangled up like smoke 

And broke. 

I threaded up my needle, then — 

Four here, four there, and here again. 



79 



FINISHED TO-NIGHT 

I have unleashed my hands, like hounds, 
And I must not call them back; 
They are off with virile bounds 
On the hidden quarry's track. 

Though there come rain or sun — 
Fleet and lean and white. 
They will follow the scent until they run 
The quarry to earth, and the quarry is night. 



80 



A BABY'S DRESS 

It is made of finest linen — 

Sheer as wasp-wings; 

It is made with a flowing panel 

Down the front, 

All overrun with fa got- stitched bow-knots 

Holding hours and hours 

Of fairy-white forget-me-nots. 



And it is finished. 
To-night, crisp with new pressing. 
It lies stiffly in its pasteboard box, 
Smothered in folds of tissue paper 
Which envelop it like a shroud — 
In its coffin-shaped pasteboard box. 



To-morrow a baby will wear it at a christening; 
To-morrow the dead-white of its linen 
Will glow with the tint of baby skin; 
And out of its filmy mystery 
There will reach 
Baby hands. . . . 



81 



But to-night the lamplight plays over it and 

finds it cold. 
Like the flower-husk of a little soul, 
Which, new-lived, has fluttered to its destiny, 
It lies in its coffin-shaped pasteboard box. 

To-morrow will make it what hands cannot: 
Limp and warm with babyness, 
A hallowed thing, 
A baby's dress. 



82 



CROSS-STITCH 



I put one little slanting stitch 
On another little slanting stitch, 
Forming rows of crisscross squares, 
Until I had made a peacock; 
And always my hands tingled 
With the song of my needle: 

A little crisscross stitch I take — 
Yellow and green and blue; 
Out of a sea of them I make 
Beautiful peacock you. 

Yet finished. 

He disappointed me, 

And I shuddered at his restraint. 

But that night 

When he walked out of the sleepy shadows. 

With one wink of a wicked, yellow-lidded 

eye, 
I was satisfied. 

/ took a thread of every shade — 
Yellow and green and blue; 
Out of a sea of them I made 
Beautiful peacock you. 



83 



PLAIN SEWING 

My stitches, like the even tide of feet 
Beating against the pavement of the street 
Below my window-sill, forever run 
Before the footsteps of the sun. 

Down streets of seams, and formal avenues 
Of basted hems, each crowding stitch pursues. 
Seeking no destination on the way — 
Only the end of day. 



84. 



SEWING HANDS 



My hands are motion ; they cannot rest. 
They are the foam upon the sea, 
Borne with a wave to a fleeting crest, 
Hurled back, borne on, unceasingly. 

They are existent and made whole 
In their unrest, as the entity 
Of foam is spun where waters roll 
Back, and on, eternally. 



85 



LINGERIE 



To-day my hands have been flattered 

With the cool-finger touch of thin linen, 

And I have unwound 

Yards of soft, folded nainsook 

From a stiff" bolt. 

Also I have held a piece of lawn 

While it marbled with light 

In a sudden quiver of sun. 

So to-night I know of the delicate pleasure 

Of white-handed women 

Who like to touch smooth linen handkerchiefs, 

And of the baby's tactual surprise 

In closing its fist 

Over a handful of nainsook. 

And even something of the secret pride of the 

girl 
As the folds of her fine lawn nightgown 
Breathe against her body. 



86 



FILET CROCHET 

I make a band of filet crocliet, 
And this is the pattern I never forget: 
A rose, a wreath and the latticed net 
Of fine filet crochet. 

Thread over needle, and over again: 
Lattice, a wreath and a single rose — 
That is the way the pattern goes 
Over and over again. 

Finish the rose and start the wreath. 
And careful lest, hurrying thread. 
Something climbs over the lattice instead 
Of a single rose and a wreath. 

Finish the wreath and start the rose. 
And pull in, needle, strangling tight, 
Choking out anything else that might 
Climb with a wreath and a rose. 

Under, needle; and over, thread; 
Something may grow by a garden wall. 
Yet nothing must grow in a pattern at all 
But a rose and a wreath of thread. 



87 



So thread over needle, and over again. 
Until there is nothing else that grows — 
Only a wreath and a thready rose 
Over and over again. 



88 



HEAVY THREADS 

When the dawn unfolds like a bolt of ribbon 

Thrown through my window, 

I know that hours of light 

Are about to thrust themselves into me 

Like omnivorous needles into listless cloth, 

Threaded with the heavy colours of the sun. 

They seem altogether too eager 

To embroider this thing of mine, 

My Day, 

Into the strict patterns of an altar cloth; 

Or at least to stitch it into a useful garment. 

But I know they will do nothing of the kind. 

They will prick away. 

And when they are through with it 

It will look like the patch quilt my grandmother 

made 
When she was learning to sew. 



89 



BUTTONHOLES 



Cut a little opening 

And overcast it, then 

(Throwing the thread across each stitch) 

Stitch it round again. 

A moment's stitching finds it 
Finished ; but not until 
The sun has burned its beauty out 
And dropped behind the hill. 



90 



PUZZLED STITCHES 

Needle, running in and out, 
In and out, in and out. 
Do you know what you're about, 
In and out, in and out? 

Fingers, going to and fro, 
To and fro, to and fro. 
Do you know the path you go. 
To and fro, to and fro? 

I might tell you why you're taking 
Such good stitches: You are making 
Out of linen, fine as breaking 
Ocean-spray upon a bluff, 
Pleating for a Bishop's cuff! 

I might make you understand 
That a Bishop's white, white hand, 
Because of you, will be more fair, 
Will be raised in better prayer. 

Even then would you know 
Why you're going to and fro? 
Would you doubt what you're about, 
Running in and running out? 



91 



SUMMER SEWING 



Lengths of lawn and dimities, 
Dainty, smooth and cool. 
In their possibilities 
Beautiful, 

Stretch beneath my hand in sheets. 
Fragrant from the loom. 
Like a field of marguerites 
All in bloom. 

Where my scissors' footsteps pass 
Fluttering furrows break, 
As the scythe trails through the grass 
Its deep wake. 

All my stitches, running fleet, 
Cannot match the tread 
Of my thoughts whose winged feet 
Race ahead. 

They are gathering imagery 
Out of time and space, 
That a needle's artistry 
May embrace: 



92 



Hints of dawn and thin blue sky, 
Breaths the breezes bear, 
Wispy- wa spy things that fly 
In warm air. 

Bolts of dimity I take. 
Muslin smooth and cool ; 
These my fingers love to make 
Beautiful. 



93 



HABIT 



Last night when my work was done, 

And my estranged hands 

Were becoming mutually interested 

In such forgotten things as pulses, 

I looked out of a window 

Into a glittering night sky. 

And instantly 

I began to feather-stitch a ring around the 
moon. 



94 



PATHS 



Needle, you make me remember things . . 
A path through a wood that ran like wine, 
A turn, and the bubbling smell that clings 
Close as breath to the lips of springs 
Where the sun is sprinkled fine. 

Needle, you have a path to run 
Where never the boughs of trees have met 
And never has seeped the rain of the sun; 
But long is the way you have just begun . . 
Needle, you make me forget. 



95 



RIPPING 



Ripping, snipping, 

Slashing, gnashing 

Scissors, 

Where the hours left light trail. 

Where a needle etched a tale. 

Catching in its driven thread 

A little something of the sun 

Like an adventitous shred 

Of gold, in duller weaves misspun; 

Something of the swallow-wings 

That cut the sky in singing rings. 

And something of the intimacy 

Of trees whose boughs beckoned my eyes. 

The things I had not time to see 

Out of the day's unsprung surprise; 

(And something . . . something more : 

An incommunicable lore 

Which left a trace along these seams 

Elusive as the flare 

Of a new moon's gleams 

Dying on a templed stair. . . .) 

Rip and snip. 

Slash and gash. 



% 



Scissors, 

Until your fatal way is run. 

And every crying stitch undone; 

Until your fine, cold teeth have snipped, 

Slashed and gashed, clipped and ripped 

Up and down my seams of day. . . . 

The teeth of time have just that way. 



97 



MADE OF CRfiPE DE CHINE 

A needle running in white crepe de chine 

Is not the frail servant of utility 

It was designed to be; 

It is an arrow of silver sunlight 

Plunging with a waterfall. 

And hands moving in white crepe de chine 

Are not slaves of the precedent 

That governs them; 

They are the crouching women of a fountain, 

Who have sprung from marble into life 

To bathe ecstatically 

In the brimming basin. 



98 



MEASUREMENTS 

Stitches running up a seam 

Are not like feet beside a stream, 

And the thread that swishes after 

Is not at all like echoed laughter. 

Yet stitches are as quick as feet, 

Leaping from a rocky pleat 

To seams that slip like marshy ground; 

And thread-swish has a hollow sound. 

Stitches that have a seam to sew 
Must not forget the way they go, 
While feet that find the cool earth sweet 
Have forgotten they are feet. 
And a laugher cares not why 
His echoes have a haunted cry. 
So stitches running up a seam 
Are not like feet beside a stream. 
And the thread that swishes after 
Is not at all like echoed laughter. 



99 



INSTRUCTION 



My hands that guide a needle 
In their turn are led 
Relentlessly and deftly 
As a needle leads a thread. 

Other hands are teaching 
My needle; when I sew 
I feel the cool, thin fingers 
Of hands I do not know. 

They urge my needle onward, 
They smooth my seams, until 
The worry of my stitches 
Smothers in their skill. 

All the tired women. 
Who sewed their lives away. 
Speak in my deft fingers 
As I sew to-day. 



100 



THEN THE WIND BLEW 

The tops of trees rest my eyes, 
Especially the tips of old, dark firs 
When they rebel against the small 

manipulations 
Of even air currents. 
And leap at the sky. 



101 



MY NEEDLE'S THREAD 

My needle's thread is long and slow; 
As a needle goes a thread must go, 
And lame and blind a needle is, 
Weighed with a mood's profundities. 

My needle's thread is long and slack; 
A thread must travel a needle's track. 
And a needle leads an aimless course 
Labouring against the force 
Of gathering thought . . . 
A needle's thread will not be taut 
When every stitch is made to feel 
Pressure upon the needle's steel 
Of coldly flowing reality. 
Fluent as waters that find the sea. 

My needle's thread is long and slack; 
A needle is foiled and driven back 
To feel, among its threads, the strands 
Of life moving through losing hands. 



102 



TWO SEWING 



The wind is sewing with needles of rain. 

With shining needles of rain 

It stitches into the thin 

Cloth of earth. In, 

In, in, in. 

Oh, the wind has often sewed imth me. 

One, tivo, three. 



Spring must have fine things 

To wear like other springs. 

Of silken green the grass must be 

Embroidered. One and two and three. 

Then every crocus must be made 

So subtly as to seem afraid 

Of lifting colour from the ground; 

And after crocuses the round 

Heads of tulips, and all the fair 

Intricate garb that Spring will wear. 

The wind must sew with needles of rain, 

With shining needles of rain, 

Stitching into the thin 



103 



Cloth of earth, in, 

In, in, in. 

For all the springs of futurity. 

One, two, three. 



104 



THE LISTENING MACAWS 

Many sewing days ago 

I cross-stitched on a black satin bag 

Two listening macaws. 

They were perched on a stiff branch 
With every stitch of their green tails, 
Their blue wings, yellow breasts and sharply 

turned heads, 
Alert and listening. 

Now sometimes on the edge of relaxation 

My thought is caught back. 

Like gathers along a gathering thread. 

To the listening macaws; 

And I am amazed at the futile energy 

That has kept them, 

Alert to the last stitch. 

Listening into their black satin night. 



105 



THE LONG DAY 



I am sewing out my sorrow, 
Like a thread, wearing it thin; 
It will be old and frayed to-morrow. 
Needle, turn out; needle, turn in. 

Sorrow's thread is a long thread. 
Needle, one stitch; needle, two. 
And sorrow's thread is a strong thread, 
But I will wear it through. 

Then not only will sorrow 
Be old and thin and frayed; 
But I shall have to-morrow 
Something sorrow has made. 



106 



INANIMATE 



A needle has no memories; 
Less than the stir of frozen trees, 
Than unheard rain falling on stone, 
Are the seams that it has known. 



107 



AFTER EMBROIDERING 

I can take mercerized cotton 
And make a never-flower beautiful 
By thinking of tulips growing in window- 
boxes; 
I can work into cloth 
A certain hushed softness 
From an imagined scrutiny 
Of a lily's skin, 

And embroider conventional designs the better 
For thinking of brick garden paths. 

But if I go farther, 

If I follow the path. 

Fling out the gate, 

Plunge one breathless thought over 

an horizon . . . 
My hands lose their cunning. 



108 



THREE SONGS FOR SEWING 

I 

A fibre of rain on a windowpane 
Talked to a stitching thread: 
In the heaviest weather I hold together 
The weight of a cloud. 

To the fibre of rain on a windowpane 
The talkative stitch replied: 
/ hold together with the weight of a feather 
The heaviest shroud. 



109 



II 

My needle says: Don't be young, 

Holding visions in your eyes, 

Tasting laughter on your tongue. 

Be very old and very wise. 

And sew a good seam up and down 

In white cloth, red cloth, blue and brown. 

My needle says: What is youth 

But eyes drunken with the sun 

Seeing farther than the truth. 

Lips that call, hands that shun 

The many seams they have to do 

In white cloth, red cloth, brown and blue? 



110 



Ill 

One by one, one by one, 
Stitches of the hours run 
Through the fine seams of the day, 
Till like a garment it is done 
And laid away. 

One by one the days go by, 
And suns climb up and down the sky; 
One by one their seams are run — 
As Time's untiring fingers ply 
And life is done. 



Ill 



LATE SEWING 



There is nothing new in what is said 
By either a needle or a thread : 
Stitch, says a needle, Stitch, says the thread: 
Stitch for the living; stitch for the dead; 
All seams measure the same. 

Garb for the living is light and gay. 
While that for the dead is a shrouding grey. 
But all things match on a later day 
When little worm-stitches in the clay 
Finish all seams the same. 



112 



PART THREE 

SPRING FROM A WINDOW 



BLOSSOM-TIME 

So long as there is April 
My heart is high, 
Lifting up its white dreams 
To the sky. 

As trees hold up their blossoms 
In a blowing cloud, 
My hands are reaching. 
My hands are proud. 

All the crumbled splendours 
Of autumn, and the cries 
Of winds that I remember 
Cannot make me wise. 

Like the trees of April 
Fearless and fair — 
My heart swings its censers 
Through the golden air. 



115 



IN APRIL 



Now I am Life's victim — 
Cruel victor is he 
Who lashes me with colour 
Until I ache to see. 

Who chokes me with fragrance 
Of green things in the rain — 
Like a hand around my throat 
So sudden is the pain. 

Life, I am at your mercy ; 
And though till I am dead 
You torture me with April 
I will not bow my head! 



116 



WHEN THERE IS APRIL 

Who would fear death when there is April? 
Like a flame, like a song, 
To heal all who have lived with yearning 
Year-through, life-long. 

When there is April with fulfilment 
For longing and for pain. 
For every reaching hand that beauty 
Has lured in vain. 

Who would shrink from the earth when April 
With slim rain hands shall reach 
Through the doors of dark, and call them 
Who love her speech. 



117 



FOREBODING 



How shall I keep April 
When my songs are done — 
How can I be silent 
And still feel the sun? 

I, who dreaded silence, 

I, who April-long 

Kept my heart from breaking 

With the cry of song. 

How can I hold sunlight 
In my hands, like gold. 
And bear the pain of silence 
When my songs are old? 



118 



THE END 



